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AFC Social Conventions

After detailing the Qualities of the AFC, I feel it’s necessary to illustrate that social conventions aren’t the exclusive realm of the feminine imperative . AFC have their own set of social conventions – those which are commonly practiced and self-reinforced by the Beta mindset. I realize that more than a few of these conventions are going to get under the skin of some readers, however, as you read this, please try to do so objectively. I’m writing this as an observation; it’s not intended to be a personal affront to anyone.

You could simply call AFC Social Conventions AFC ‘rationalizations’, but I think this ignores the socially reinforcing element of these conventions. When I wrote the Qualities of the AFC I outlined the characteristic traits, behaviors and core mental schemas of what are commonly believed to be AFC qualities. This was a brief list to sum up a few root elements in identifying and dealing with a Beta mindset and aid in unplugging an AFC. Social conventions are different in that they are socially reinforced (usually by both genders) rationalizations for behavior. Technically some of the AFC qualities I outlined previously could be considered social conventions as well, but I was attempting to address the symptoms rather than the disease.

I’m going to define a few more examples of what I’m most commonly noticing as AFC mental schemas that are reinforced socially. A strong part of the internalization process of these conventions is that the reason they are socially reinforced is because they’re socially unassailable (or at the very least foolish to do so). In other words the common response to them would be to reinforce them more, rather than challenge them, and this then becomes an integral part of the internalization process.

The Myth of the “Quality” Woman

It seems like all I read about on SoSuave is a never ending quest for a “Quality Woman.” There’s always been plenty of threads asking for clear definitions of what constitutes a “Quality” woman and most conveniently set women up into 2 camps – “Quality Women” and Whores, as if there could be no middle ground or grey area. How easy it becomes to qualify a woman based on her indiscretions (as heinous as they’re perceived to be) for either of these categories. This is binary thinking at its best – on or off, black or white, Quality woman or Whore.

I think the term ‘Quality’ woman is a misnomer. Guys tend to apply this term at their leisure not so much to define what they’d like in a woman (which is actually an idealization), but rather to exclude women with whom they’d really had no chance with in the first place, or mistakenly applied too much effort and too much focus only to be rebuffed. This isn’t to say that there aren’t women who will behave maliciously or indiscriminately, nor am I implying that they ought to be excused out of hand for such. What I am saying is that it’s a very AFC predilection to hold women up to preconceived idealizations and conveniently discount them as being less than “Quality” when you’re unable to predict, much less control their behaviors.

The dangers inherent in this convention is that the AFC (or the even the ‘enlightened man’ subscribing to the convention) then limits himself to only what he perceives as a Quality woman, based on a sour-grapes conditioning. Ergo, they’ll end up with a “Quality” woman by default because she’s the only candidate who would accept him for her intimacy. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy by process of elimination. Taken to its logical conclusion, they shoot the arrow, paint the target around it and call it a bullseye, and after which they feel good for having held to a (misguided) conviction.

So why is this a social convention then? Because it is socially unassailable. Since this convention is rooted to a binary premise, no one would likely challenge it. It would be foolish for me to say “Yes Mr. Chump I think you ought to avoid what you think of as Quality women.” Not only this, but we all get a certain satisfaction from the affirmation that comes from other men confirming our assessment of what category a woman should fit into. Thus it becomes socially reinforced.

Beware of making your necessity a virtue in making a Quality woman your substitute for a ONEitis idealization.

The Myth of the Dodged Bullet

In my lifetime I’ve had sex with over 40 women and I never once caught a venereal disease, nor did I get anyone pregnant. I can also point to men I know who contracted Herpes from the only women they’d ever had sex with. The fact of the matter is that you can equally be a rock star and tap hundreds of women without any consequence and you can be a virgin saint and contract a disease on your wedding night. The myth of the dodged bullet is a social convention that’s rooted in the rationalization that monogamy serves the purpose for controlling sexually transmitted diseases and thus fewer partners are more desirable than many. From a statistical standpoint this may seem logical on the surface. Fewer opportunities for sexual intercourse would indeed decrease the risk from a single individual, but unfortunately this isn’t a practical estimate. You’ll also have to base the numbers not only on how many sex partners you and your monogamous partner have had, but also how many prior partners they’ve had and how many those partners had as well and so on exponentially. Despite of all this, the odds that you’ll die from a form of cancer, heart disease, smoking or obesity related diseases, or even an alcohol related traffic fatality far outweigh any risk of dying from a venereal disease in western society. The mortality rate for for contracting gonorrhea, syphilis, chlamydia, herpes and even HIV pale in comparison to many – in some cases more easily preventable – diseases.

Of course, since this is a social convention, I would be grossly negligent and severely lambasted by the public at large for even implying that I’m condoning, much less advocating, that a man explore his options and open his experience up to having sex with multiple partners. Again, this social convention is unassailable. But it sounds like it makes good sense, “boy, am I sure glad I got married/shacked up and didn’t catch a disease, pffew!” It sounds like conviction, when in fact it’s a rationalization for a lack of other realistic options with women or an innability to deal with a fear of rejection from multiple sources. Again, necessity becomes virtue.

Location, Location, Location

Another common contrivance is the presumption that less than desirable (low quality) women will necessarily be found in bars & clubs (or other places of “ill repute”). Thus the chump will only too eagerly avoid these places. This is, yet again, another example of the binary logic of an AFC and completely ignores that A.) women with whom they might make a successful connection with do in fact frequent clubs and B.) less than desirable women can also be met in “alternative” meeting places too (coffee house, university campus, library, Bible study or any number of other “safe places”). However, making approaches in a club are difficult for the inexperienced Game adherent and AFC alike. There’s a lot of competition and a LOT of potential for ‘real time’ rejection for the unprepared. By masking this deficit in game with condemning such places, the AFC thinks he’s killing two birds with one stone – he’s protecting his ego from very real rejection and he’s lauded by “proper” society (see people who go to clubs anyway) for being an upstanding individual for avoid those “dens of iniquity.”

The Myth of ‘Other Guys’

This is perhaps the most dangerous AFC social convention.

We’d all like to think we’re unique and special individuals. It’s a comforting thought, but our uniqueness means nothing if it isn’t appreciated. We’d all like to be beautiful, talented, intelligent and extrordinary in some way to some degree and have others notice these qualities unequivocally. This is the root for the Not Like Other Guys convention. The idea is that the AFC can and will be appreciated in a greater degree for his personal convictions and/or his greater ability to identify with women’s stated prerequisites of a man by comparing himself to the nebulous Other Guys who are perceived not to abide by her stated conditions. The intent is to, in essesence, self-generate social proof for attraction while substituting a real social element with perceived or reported social evidence. The fallacy in this schema is that it’s always better to demonstrate social proof than to explicate it, but this is lost on the AFC subscribing to this convention. This only becomes more compounded by the reinforcement he receives from other AFCs (and really society at large) sharing his desire to outshine the phantom Other Guys. He’s patted on the back and praised by men and women alike for voluntarily molding his personality to better fit a woman’s perceived ideal and told in so many words “oh AFC,..I’m so glad you’re not like Other Guys.”You can’t fault the guy. He genuinely believes his Nice Guy personal conviction and everyone applauds him for it.

In closing I’d argue that 95% of men aren’t even aware that they’re repeating / reinforcing a social convention at all because the convention is so embedded into social consciousness it’s taken for granted. The most effective social conventions are ones in which the subject willingly sublimates his own interests, discourages questioning it, and predisposes that person to encourage and reinforce the convention with others. This is the essence of the Matrix; anything can become normal.

I encounter AFC mentalities all day long in my line of work, and I don’t encounter them strictly from men either. More often than not I find myself in some social/work environment where it’s women fomenting an AFC attitude and it’s men who jokingly play along with them in an attempt to identify with these women in order to qualify for female intimacy. It’s this pop-culture ‘agreeability’ factor that is taken as an unquestioned norm. It’s expected that female-centric social conventions should simply be a matter of fact without any need for critical thought.

For a positively masculine Man there is no better opportunity to set yourself apart and start to plant the seeds of critical thought into AFCs than when you’re presented with these social situation. I think most men lack the balls to be a firestarter at the risk of being perceived as some caveman, but it’s a good opportunity to truly set yourself apart from ‘other guys’ when you do.

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23 comments

While it is important to not turn a necessityinto a virtue,
and while the Quality/Whore label is a nebulous path at best to navigate,
it is still very much in the best interest of men to learn how to discern on some level the indiscretions of a woman before committing in any way to her.

While I do not advoate directly asking a woman if she was a whore or how much she slept around, knowing if a woman gave 37 blowjobs (not counting you) during the course of a year can tell you a lot about what you can expect during a marriage. Or hell, you may decide that you don’t want to “buy” something that so many other men were able to sample at no cost.

My point is, it is important that people do not confuse qualifying a woman for your commitment with making necessity a virtue. As long as you know that you are truly disqualifying a woman based on a sordid past, and not based on your inability (perceived or otherwise) to shack up with her, then that does not make you an AFC, nor should it embroil you in a Quality/Whore debate.

I point to the very recent Palin/Rice revelation today. Had Palin’s husband known that Palin had a one-nighter with a basketball star (and allegedly a temporary fetish for black c0ck), would he have been so quick to marry her 9 months later? Particularly since he was still in the picture in some manner when the tryst occurred?

Or does he not care that during some “break” she rampaged on the c0ck carousel, getting her goods thorougly and discreetly plundered, to only then turn around and get him to purchase said goods with the highi price of a lifetime of monogamy?

The Myth of the Quality Woman is also a post-rationalization for men who can’t bear the thought of being with a woman who does not meet up to some arbitrary judgment of “quality”. If you acknowledge that women should be judged on a sliding scale as opposed to a binary scale you open yourself up to the possibility that any given woman might not actually live up to the expectations of you or of society in general.

A lot of men are scared shitless to break through the final layers. To do so would require them to abandon every last shred of fantasy that has been ingrained in them from birth. Sure, they will acknowledge that women don’t like nice guys, and that hypergamy exists, but taking that extra step into believing that any woman is capable of cheating on you (not to be confused with the idea that ALL women cheat) requires a level of fortitude that few men possess. The truth isn’t ugly, it is downright disgusting. And a lot of guys can’t handle it.

That’s why I don’t post at sosuave anymore. I read the MM board from time to time when I’m feeling a little masochistic but the thought of getting involved in another circular debate with a bunch of people who are too weak to fully surrender to the truth just doesn’t appeal to me.

“taking that extra step into believing that any woman is capable of cheating on you (not to be confused with the idea that ALL women cheat) requires a level of fortitude that few men possess. The truth isn’t ugly, it is downright disgusting. And a lot of guys can’t handle it.”

This was the final frontier for me in the manosphere. That was very difficult for me to accept but I did it. It’s hard for a married man to accept the truth that your wife is capable of cheating on you. Not that she has, or that she would, just that she’s capable of it. i’m capable of cheating on her. Anyone is capable of anything, really.

The second point is: there is no such thing as an ideal “quality woman”. She has good and bad characteristics.

It’s not a long leap from capability to acting on that capability, either. And that’s why Game is so important for married men.

The next step is to think through what you would do if you had evidence of her cheating and then what you would do if she did cheat. I think every married man needs to go there. Every married man in today’s society needs to consider soberly what he would do if faced with his spouse’s cheating. You need to have a plan to deal with it. There are things she could do that would end things between us despite the fact that I love her very much. For me, fidelity is the one nonnegotiable thing. She cheats, we’re done. No second chance. Call the lawyers and get the papers filed.

What bugs me most is that these memes, shemas and scripts are indoctrinated through TV shows that guys willingly watch. I live in a shared house and have been subjected to shows like ‘The Big Bang’ and ‘How I Met Your Mother’ which are full of these damaging ideas.

I read that sosuave thread. Good Lord. I think it’s pretty clear that in today’s SMP, it’s a sliding scale between quality woman and whore. Every woman has some quality characteristics. Every woman has some whore. . There is no “ideal” woman. Any man who wants a wife will just have to try to find one with the fewest amount of “whore” characteristics he can find, and hope for the best.

First, I say before, and I’ll probably say again unless I can’t recognize you anymore or stop reading these posts. Your tone of condescension never help. Your condescending tone, not your statements is the much more likely to be what really stirred those threads to the flame wars when you were around. Just compare, this did went to 5 pages, but it took 2 months to do it. You would have reach 5 pages in 2 days, and with more vitriol and less discussion.

Aside from that, I cannot agree your argument that most of SS can’t handle the truth stuff. Still can’t agree. Maybe I’m not reading closely enough, but I don’t see people arguing about the spectrum idea, but arguing about women were all whores and sluts at 20 versus 30.

That still fit with the spectrum idea quite well too. A women at 30 who would lean the closest to pure would likely participated little in being the sorority girl riding the carousel.

BTW – I believe this is off topic and I don’t want to derail it too much, but the argument at the forum seems from this end seems to be saying the 30-year old soccermom carries a secret that they were gang-banged at 20 as a sorority girl. It sounds like an argument that the difference between a slut and an angel is whatever the conditions demands her to act around the man she’s around. Somehow this is an argument for the quality women myth. That doesn’t seem to fit with the above section where the summarized point of the myth is men are merely denoting whatever the definition of quality to the woman they are with rather than trying to find a woman that fit closest to the definition. The discussion of the sorority girl and soccer mom seems to be a separate topic.

I know arguing this puts me in the “other camp,” but I wonder what’s the response will be and I guess I still lean that way. Another word to pick on, I remember that Roissy/Heartiste have pointed many times that the quality of a woman is inversely related to the number of men she been with (on average) along with a pattern of behavior. Basically, a slut doesn’t magically change, they can hide it, and they will definitely hide it from a judging person, but most of the time, her true form remains.

Articles like those and from my experience and observations of people I know tend to concur. If you somehow picking a girl at 30 (in the case of this example), the 30 year old who was studying at 22 is statistically preferable to the one getting gangbanged at 22, all other factors equal.

I would like Mr. Tomassi to answer this question: if we are not judge our potential partner’s character and possible tell tales she is a cunt, should we entangle ourselves with….a known former gangbanger? because tha’s where your mindset leads (i hope I misread and misunderstood your statement). In my personal life I divide the women in two categories, possible LTRs (no marriage at this time) and fuckbuddies as you would say, gals i wouldn’t want to wake up next to. Based on the telltales that I’m able to spot over 80% are only worth a fuck and nothig more, completely unfit for any long term relationship (longterm is >month).

Only a chump wouldn`t judge his potential partner`s character and past tendencies, only those witthout options would choose whatever comes their way, “alpha males” aka real men choose the best the SMV can offer not the scraps.

So, this article hit a nerve with me, about a question none of my more PUA or Game-minded friends have been able to really advise me on. You see…I dated a woman for a couple months and when we had sex the first time she did in fact give me Herpes. Truthfully its really not that hard to live with…when you first get it you get the worst flu ever and its hell but after that it’s nothing more horrible, and often indistinguishable from an ingrown hair or pimple, and I never get outbreaks on my actual junk. WHAT IS the real issue is one of ethics and the law. As we all know seduction is a process of turning on the emotional attraction triggers for a woman and creating on some level more or less a fantasy experience. And yet I am bound by ethics that when things are getting to the point where they might be sexual, I have to “have the talk” about my status…nothing kills the mood faster than being dropped into THAT reality. On a whole other level, apparently women can sue now if you do give them a VD and they can prove you had prior knowledge and did non-disclose.

So…all of this has gotten me a bit down as to my SMV. I’m very tall, handsome…I’m a bit overweight but am working daily tooth and nail to get a rockstar body, and I’m also working daily on overcoming the Beta conditioning I got my whole life from being raised by my victim-card-playing serial divorcee mother who raised me (I am a BIG TIME recovering former Christian White Knight Beta Good Boy).

I’m turning 33 this year. In the next few years my career is going to be rocking, my bod is going to be rocking, but I HAVE THIS FUCKING PERMANENT VD…it makes me feel like I’m going to have to settle for whatever post-Wall woman I can get who will accept me, because every single mid-20’s girl that’s been into me has run for the hills as soon as I’ve been honest and straight-up about my status, and why shouldn’t they? As tall and handsome as I may be its not hard for them to find others even more handsome or more successful. Yeah 50-80% of the population ends up with one form of HSV or another by age 50, and it’s ironic that those promiscuous women are likely to get a bug like Herpes because it can be so innocuous and go undetected for so long.

Anyway, would love any thoughts or advice from you guys about the best way to approach Game as an otherwise awesome HSV positive guy…

Sky, I think assuming you are ethically obliged to disclose your status to a casual hookup is overblown and misguided. Legally, you are certainly not required to do so in the United States (unlike HIV, in many states). If you take suppressive medications, avoid sex on OBs, and use protection, your chances of transmitting the virus are 0-2%. If your original site of infection and OB occur on the the area covered by the condom, then the chances of transmission are even closer to 0%. The numbers you read on the internet about condoms only being partially successful at stopping the virus take into account shedding areas unshielded by the condom. But the body tends to shed where the OBs appear. Hence, if its on your shaft or head that’s where you shed — so if a condom covers it — you’re good and very unlikely to transmit. Did you catch the virus from a girl while using a condom? I doubt it; nobody I know did. Friends of mine who have had been exposed were unilaterally having sex without protection. In any case, don’t be so hard on yourself. Allow yourself to pursue your sexual goals and do it in a way that best protects your partners. A lot of internet discussion around herpes tends to this moralistic “you must disclose!” mantra —- that’s a mantra more intended to (over-time) destroy the stigma of herpes but at the expense of individuals taking the brunt and being the victims of social or sexual rejection. Basically it’s about this: if 10,000s of people over the next decade disclose and get rejected, public perception about the virus may start to shift. If that’s the project you want to be part of, that’s on you. But there is no higher power or karmic scoreboard keeping tabs against you for NOT disclosing if you take care to protect your partner in sensible ways. I know a PUA who has been living with the virus for 3 years and has had dozens and dozens of sex encounters, never disclosed, and as far as he knows never passed the virus on to anyone. Finally, this post may be heartening: http://www.pick-up-artist-forum.com/stds-are-overblown-the-guide-to-stds-vt119507.html